Longest Ship in the World
Listing of the world's longest ships
Sea wise Giant, a ULCC supertanker is generally known to be the longest ship and biggest self-propelled man-made object ever built, and had the largest deadweight tonnage ever recorded with a displacement of 657, 019 tonnes. This 1, 504 feet longest ship in the world was built at a shipyard in Japan, and was so large that she was unable to navigate the English Channel, the Panama Canal, or the Suez Canal. After 30 years of service, including being used as a floating storage and off-loading component, this record-breaking longest ship was sold to Indian ship breakers where she was intentionally beached for demolition.
The supertanker Pierre Guillaumat was the 2nd longest ship in the world, with a deadweight tonnage of 555,000 tonnes and length of 1, 360 feet, and was constructed and put to work in 1977. The ship's enormous dimensions meant she could not navigate the Suez or Panama canals, and her draft only allowed this second longest ship entry to a small number of ports in the world. The Pierre Guillaumat was mainly moored at off-shore rigs and oil terminals, or at Europort once she had been off-loaded. Declining demands fora ship of her size saw this ship decommissioned after only 6 years, and she was purchased by the Hyundai Corporations in 1983 and demolished.
Laying claim to the titles of the third and fourth longest ships in the world are the oil- and supertankers Prairal and Batillus, with a deadweight tonnage of 555, 000 and 554,00 tonnes respectively, and both ships with a length of 1,359 feet. The Batillus was constructed for the French branch of Shell Oil in1976, and as with the Pierre Guillaumat was eventually scrapped due to low demand. The Prairal, eventually sailing under the name Sea Giant, spent almost 34 years as the 3rd longest ship carrying oil and goods around the world.
Of the top ten longest ships in the world, the Emma Mærsk is the only ship that is currently still in service, and was the largest container ship in the world when was launched in 2006 with a dead weight tonnage capacity of 159,000 tonnes and length of 1,305 meters.
The record held by the longest ship in the world is set to be broken by construction of the huge 1,312.3 ft Mærsk Triple E class in 2014.